Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Another detail evident in Bishop’s letter dated 19 December
1955, is that Grace was moving around — Bishop’s word for her aunt’s peripateticism
was “galivanting” [sic: Bishop composed
her letters on a manual typewriter, and they contain many misspelled words and
typos, most likely because it was just too difficult to correct them — though
often Bishop inked in corrections].

Grace trained as a nurse in the 1910s and before she was married
held positions in Boston and New York. After her marriage to William
Bowers in 1923, she nursed in Great Village throughout the 20s and 30s; but after she
became a widow in 1947, with her children grown, she hit the road again,
nursing in various places in Nova Scotia and New England. Grace was mainly an obstetrics nurse and
helped to deliver many babies.

(Grace and her nursing colleagues at Boston-Lying-In Hospital, 1910s.

top image: Grace far right; bottom image, Grace centre back row, AUA)

At the time of writing this letter, Bishop had only just
learned that her aunt had left a place where she had been working, a place
called Crotched Mountain Hospital, in Greenfield, New Hampshire, which was
established only a couple of years before, in 1953.

Grace had written to Bishop from this place earlier in 1955
and Bishop, believing her aunt still there, sent a Christmas gift to her, only
to be informed by Grace of her departure too late to recall the gift.

Crotched
Mountain Rehabilitation
Center is a major
institution now (its website is impressive). But in these early days, perhaps it was still finding its
levels because Grace didn’t stay long and, as evident from Bishop’s letter, she
had written to her niece about the issues that triggered the move (Grace was
nothing if not capable, indomitable and determined, so she would have had good
reason for leaving). What these issues were are lost with Grace’s lost letter,
but Bishop’s response was: “I am glad you’ve left. I know I’m rather suspicious
anyway, but I was very much so when you wrote me about the salary and their
going to N.S. for employees — they thought they could get good hard-working
women for nothing, I suppose.”

At the time of this letter, Grace was in Brookline,
MA., perhaps nursing; but she was also
thinking about going to Florida,
where she had never been, and where her niece Hazel Boomer Snow, was living.
Bishop’s response to this idea was: “I really don’t like the state much as a
place to live — I just liked Key West,
the way it used to be.” She refers to “competition” being “pretty stiff,” so
perhaps Grace was looking into another nursing job there. Bishop suggested
Grace go to St. Augustine, St.
Petersburg or Sarasota
to take “care of a nice rich old man!....if you don’t object to that kind of
work.” Grace did spend time in Florida,
though perhaps not at this point. There are images of her visiting her
sister-in-law Mabel and niece Hazel, being a tourist, trips taken after she
finally retired from nursing in the 1960s.

Bishop mentions that Marjorie Stevens was thinking about
visiting Brazil.
Bishop and Stevens had a relationship in the 1940s. Even after it ended, they
remained friends. Stevens went to Nova
Scotia with Bishop in 1947, where she met Grace. They,
too, remained in touch, and Grace eventually visited Marjorie in Florida. Bishop knew
that Grace would be interested in Marjorie’s plan. Bishop noted that “the
flight is awfully expensive,” but since Marjorie worked for the air-force, and
since one of Lota’s uncles “is now Foreign Minister,” they hoped to “be able to
get her trip at a big discount for her.”*

Grace loved to travel as much as Bishop. When she turned 80
(1969), for example, she went to Chilliwack,
British Columbia, to visit
friends and her cousin Everal Bulmer. Everal had sent Grace photos of “The
Cascades” as early as the 1910s,
which perhaps inspired Grace’s desire to visit. Although it took decades, the
trip finally happened.

Grace spent the early 1970s going back and forth among her
childrens’ homes. Bishop and Grace kept track of each other in their letters
during the 1950s and 1960s. When Bishop returned for good to New England in
1970, one of the first things she did was go to Nova Scotia to see her aunt.

In these days of more than instant communication, it
requires some imagination to understand the pace of this correspondence, the
patience required. By the time news arrived, it often had already changed. Yet,
the leisure of letters allowed each correspondent real space-time to think and move
freely with less insistent, pressing demands than, say, the Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter or texting of today.

********

*Note: It appears that this proposed visit never happened,
though Bishop was still talking about it as a possibility in early 1956. Brett
Millier records no such visit in EB: Life
and the Memory of It. Bishop did visit Stevens in 1957, when back in the US for six
months.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Bishop’s letter to Aunt Grace dated 19 December 1955 was
prompted in part by the upcoming holiday season. Christmas was not Bishop’s favourite time of year.
Until she settled in Brazil,
Bishop spent her life struggling with increased depression during this season,
one she avoided as much as possible. The reasons for this response could make a
lengthy article, if not a book; though she was no different than many of us who
hold at least an ambivalence about this sacred holiday turned family-obsessed,
commercial extravaganza.

Even so, it is clear from Bishop’s letters to Grace that
aunt and niece exchanged Christmas gifts more or less regularly, even when far
removed. Indeed, Bishop endeavoured to send Christmas gifts to most of her
closest relatives, even to Aunt Florence Bishop, with whom she had a fraught
relationship. Perhaps Bishop made these gestures out of a sense of obligation,
but with Grace, the impulse was more tender. Indeed, Bishop sent her aunt many
gifts over the years, and not only at Christmas. Some of these gifts are now
part of the family archive at Acadia
University.

For this particular Christmas, Bishop enclosed “a small
token” (that is, money), which she wished was larger, “but since it’s been a
‘poetry year’ rather than a ‘prose year’, I’m unusually impoverished.” The
reason for this seemingly impersonal gift was because Bishop had already
ordered “a large box of chocolates and bon bons” from S.S. Pierce’s in Boston, to be sent directly to Grace and her nursing
friend at a hospital in Vermont,
where they had been working. But Grace’s letter of 7 December (missing, of
course) informed Bishop that she was no longer there (the “gallivanting” aunt
was now in Brookline, MA — so the gift from Pierce’s was lost).

For “Aunt F,” Bishop had ordered “some little
quarter-bottles of champagne, enough for a glass for her & a friend, to
cheer her up.” Florence,
too, had been on the move. Bishop told Grace that Florence’s new address was “21 Fruit Street, Worcester.” Grace knew Florence well and Bishop asked Grace to “send
her a card if there is time,” because “she is pretty wretched these days, I’m
afraid.”

21 Fruit St., Worcester, MA (today)

As for Bishop’s Christmas, she told her aunt that it would
“be very quiet — we hope.” They were expecting a friend from Rio
and they had to “call on, & be called upon,” by the neighbours. Lota gave
Bishop “a lovely pair of old earrings, gold, probably Portug[u]ese.” Bishop
gave Lota “some books” and was painting her a picture, “when I have time to
paint it.” Christmas in Brazil,
at least during the 1950s, was a much more uplifting time for Bishop, though
her modus operandi was, always, just to get through it.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

The next file of letters from Bishop to Aunt Grace, held at
Vassar (EBP I, 25.3), for the year 1955, indicates “2 letters.” In the next
couple of posts, I will write about various aspects of the first of these letters,
which is dated 19 December 1955. I am going to pluck out some elements and turn
them over a bit, in the spirit of Bishop’s sandpiper’s gaze where no detail is
too small.

By this point, Bishop was fully ensconced in Brazil with
Lota. They were living mostly at Petrópolis (the relentless pull of Rio was still five years away). By December 1955, after a
drought of several years, Bishop had in hand Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring (which would win the
Pulitzer Prize in 1956). She had already sent Grace a copy, which now resides in
the Acadia University Archives, inscribed: “Grace Bowers from Elizabeth Bishop
with love.” (In my view, this formal-sounding inscription was Bishop thinking
about posterity, and the importance of her full signature.)

Bishop had published during this stretch, most importantly,
her stories “In the Village” and “Gwendolyn” in The New Yorker (both in 1953). But very little poetry had seen the
light of day, so the book was a great relief. She told Grace that she had seen
her book in the window of a bookshop in Rio
and it had been written up in the newspapers: “Isn’t it amazing when its in a
different language?” She observed that one article claimed she received $1,000
per poem: “Godknows where they got
that.” She was quite sure that as soon as the local merchants read this
extraordinary fact, Lota’s grocery bills would “probably be doubled.”

At the time of this letter, Bishop was in the throes of
helping Henrique Mindlin (http://www.arquivo.arq.br/#!henrique-mindlin/c12eu),
a Brazilian architect, translate his book Modern
Architecture in Brazil (1956), a task she called “a hideous rush job” to
Randall Jarrell (OA, 311). Mindlin
was involved with Lota in the design of her house at Samambaia.

To Grace, she noted that she had been “too busy,” referring
to “this job on the architecture book I think I told you about.” The deadline
for it was 8 January. Then she told Grace a bit of information that was of keen
interest to them both, that Mindlin’s wife was imminently due to have their
first child. The couple had just spent the weekend, and they had been “slaving”
from morning to, what Bishop could have said, in the tradition of Robbie Burns,
“the wee sma’ hours.” She was worried that Henrique would have a “nervous
breakdown” before this task was completed.

Bishop knew Grace would be interested in the approaching
birth because her aunt had been an obstetrics nurse early in her career,
training at the Boston-Lying-In Hospital. She had helped to deliver and care
for countless babies. For a childless woman, Bishop had an active interest in
children and her letters to Grace are full of details about the children who
were part of her and Lota’s Brazilian household at this time (and there were
several).

Brett Millier notes that Bishop and Mindlin worked well
together and ended up becoming friends. (287) Curiously, Mindlin and Bishop
were born in the same year. Bishop’s life-long interest in architecture would
have been augmented with this project. As Millier also notes, this was one of
only a very few “commercial” gigs Bishop did during her life. She was not one
for deadlines.

This letter is the first full epistle in this particular collection. It is clear through the conversational style and wide-ranging
subjects that Bishop and Grace had a well-established correspondence, which was
integrated in and integral to Bishop’s larger epistolary practice. Perhaps
there were not as many “literary” details as found in her letters to writer
friends, but neither were they absent. Indeed, word for word, Bishop kept Grace
apprised of all her Brazilian doings in ways that echo directly the rest of her
correspondence.

The next detail I will discuss, which is central to this
letter, is Christmas.

Sunday, April 10, 2016

The old bridge in Great Village, Nova Scotia. Drawing by Andrew Meredith.

Artist Andrew Meredith has created a new colouring book inspired by Great Village, Nova Scotia. He will be launching it in the village in May 2016. Check out his Facebook page to find out more. You can also learn about it on the EBSNS Facebook page. We will be letting you know the particulars of Andrew's launch when they are announced. Bravo, Andrew, on this wonderful idea.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

The second postcard in the Vassar register’s file “1950–52,”
of Bishop’s correspondence to Aunt Grace, does date from this time. The
cancellation mark reads “21 I 52” (21 January 1952). Bishop is in Brazil. This
postcard was not the first communication to Aunt Grace during what Bishop still,
at this point, thought was a visit. Its purpose was to let Grace know as
quickly as possible that she had decided to alter her travel plans, “I’m staying
in Brazil until the end of
Feb,” and confirm her address, so that Grace could write: “the Rio address will reach me.” Clearly, Bishop had written
to Grace earlier, as the postcard contains no return address.

Bishop addresses this postcard to The Red Cross Hospital in Tatamagouche, N.S.
By 1952, Grace was a widow (William Bowers having died in 1947) and her
children grown. Grace returned to full-time nursing, taking positions at
various hospitals in Nova Scotia and New England, before she retired sometime in the 1960s.
So, Grace also informed Bishop of her whereabouts. With the death of Aunt Maude
in 1940, Bishop’s connection with Grace became even more important. They kept
tabs on each other.

Bishop left New
York City on 26 October 1951. She arrived in Brazil on 26 November, and in Rio
on 30 November. She became ill (the infamous incident with the fruit of the
cashew) sometime after 12 December and was nursed back to health by Lota de
Macedo Soares. Millier writes, “By February 10 [1952], she had admitted that
the idea of continuing her trip, or of going back to the United States, was
further and further from her mind.” (245)

The image on the verso of this postcard is a vista showing a
precipitous curving road in the mountains, which Bishop admitted was
“terrifying the 1st time.”

Is it just me, or is this image rather symbolic of what was
then happening to Bishop — the journey on this road took her further into
Lota’s life. They took the risk of a partnership that had immense and powerful
consequences, Bishop called it “precipitate” in “The Shampoo,” for them both.
But, of course, Bishop was just showing her beloved aunt some of the wonders of
Brazil,
an image she knew would resonate with Grace. After all, Nova
Scotia had its own narrow curving roads, threading through mountains,
and some of them not too far from Great
Village.

This photograph was taken in 1958 by my parents during a Cape Breton
vacation they took with friends, on the famous winding Cabot Trail. Bishop’s
one trip to Cape Breton occurred in 1947. Not much would
have changed in the following decade. Even if the mountainous roads in Brazil were grander (most things are grander in Brazil!), it is not stretching reality to suppose
Bishop thought of Nova Scotia when she first drove to Petrópolis, and she knew
Grace would appreciate what she experienced, as undoubtedly, Grace had visited
the Cabot Trail, too.

Bishop wrote, “Thank you so much for your letter. & I’ll
write soon.” That letters exchanged between 1942 and 1952 do not survive does
not mean they did not exist. Likely, there were many. We are fortunate that so
many of Bishop’s letters to Aunt Grace, from the 1950s to 1970s, did survive.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

According to Vassar’s register of the Elizabeth Bishop
Papers, the first file in the correspondence to “Aunt Grace [Bowers]” contains
“2 postcards 1950–52.”The first of
these, however, is clearly from a much earlier time. The stamp says “Mexico.” The
cancellation indicates it went through the U.S. Censor, a wartime measure.
Bishop went to Mexico
in 1942. In the very brief note this format allowed, Bishop acknowledges a
letter from her aunt and describes the image of a family of potters on the
verso, “they…have been doing it exactly the same way for 1,000 years or so.”
Brett Millier discusses Bishop’s sojourn in Mexico at length (165–69) and
quotes a passage that echoes this note, probably from a travel diary Bishop
kept from 1938 to 1942 (EBP, VII, 77.3): “Elizabeth…contemplated the town’s
primitive pottery works: ‘They have been making it for thousands of years the
same way...’.” (169)

(the verso of the postcard Bishop sent to Grace)

Bishop was keenly interested in what she called “primitive”
art, what we would now call “folk art,” of various forms and genres. This
emerged early in her life, undoubtedly in her childhood, through experiences in
Great Village. While this postcard might be
dismissed as mere “tourist” gaze, there is a context for Bishop’s choice. She
engaged with these artists and wanted to share that encounter with her aunt.

What this seemingly slight document also reveals is that
Bishop corresponded with Grace for a very long time. Bishop made a visit to Great Village
in December 1929–January 1930. That fall she entered Vassar. She did not return
to Nova Scotia
for sixteen years. Grace was fully ensconced at Elmcroft by that time, raising
her own family. It is safe to assume that their correspondence began in earnest
from that point, when separation and distance made writing a necessity.

Postcards are perhaps the most unrevealing of all
correspondence, partly because they are public, their messages viewable to all
who handle them. So, the correspondent is circumspect. Combined with limited
space, what is generated often seems trivial. However, Bishop chose to send her
aunt an image of people doing the work they had done for centuries. To herself,
in her diary, she commented that while the pottery had some redeeming qualities,
“It seemed to me to be the dreariest artistic tradition I’ve ever seen.” To
Grace, however, she noted that the father made her two figures, a nanny and
billy goat. Well, one might ask: Are these the parents of the baby goats in
“Crusoe in England”?

Bishop went to Mexico with Marjorie Stevens. Grace
eventually met Marjorie, when she and Elizabeth returned to Nova Scotia in 1947. Grace not only
corresponded with Marjorie but also connected with her in Florida years later, when Grace spent
winters there with her niece Hazel.

Thus, one tiny postcard should not be dismissed as slight. I
am sure I have gleaned only part of its significance.

5 September 2017: Nulla dies sine linea

[Today, near the beginning of a new month traditionally associated with the first day of school we begin a new feature to replace the long-running "Today in Bishop." Each day we hope to post a brief reflection on a line from Bishop's poetry, beginning with the title of the first poem in her first book, North & South. We would be happy to have contributions from the Patronage-at-Large, should anyone be so inclined.]

"The Map"

Not simply "Map": abstract, generalized, a concept more than an object, perhaps not even a noun at all, but an imperative, an imperious directive; nor yet "A Map": token of a type, a random example run across by chance, perhaps, on the dusty dark-fumed oak table in the centre of Marks & Co. once-upon-a-time during a long-anticipated visit to 84, Charing Cross Road just prior to its burial beneath a modernist glass tower, where its once-upon-a-place is now marked by a memorial plaque; no, no, no — "The Map" — unique, archetypal, redolent of all that makes it one-and-only, but also a congeries of interwoven metonymies as patterned and abundant as the sixth of the "La Dame à la licorne" Flemish tapestries ("À mon seul désir") or as Vermeer's "De Soldaat en het Lachende Meisje"— or, yet again, as the map in EB's "Primer Class."

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John Barnstead

I retired in 2014 after forty years of teaching Russian language and literature. I'm a past president of the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia.

Sandra Barry

I am a poet, independent scholar, freelance editor, and secretary of the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia.

Suzie LeBlanc

I am a professional singer who recently became a great admirer of Elizabeth Bishop's writing. I am also fond of walking and nature and I became involved with the Elizabeth Bishop Centenary because I wanted to have her poems set to music so that I could sing them.